{"id":1468,"date":"2016-06-22T07:00:02","date_gmt":"2016-06-22T11:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=1468"},"modified":"2016-12-31T17:09:06","modified_gmt":"2016-12-31T22:09:06","slug":"riot-number-nine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/riot-number-nine\/","title":{"rendered":"Riot in Cell Block Number Nine (The Coasters)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lKfL80AbYZU\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Though my record-buying at Dayton\u2019s focused on prewar blues, there were a handful of notable exceptions \u2013 most significantly, a trio of reissue albums on the Atlantic label featuring the Drifters, the Clovers, <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1470\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Coasters-300x300.jpg?resize=300%2C300\" alt=\"Coasters\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Coasters.jpg?resize=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Coasters.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Coasters.jpg?w=320&amp;ssl=1 320w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>and \u2013 far and away most memorably \u2013 the Coasters. Aside from Chuck Berry and Ray Charles, I don\u2019t think any other R&amp;B hitmakers in the 1950s recorded a body of work I love as much as the Coasters&#8217;. Unlike Berry and Charles, though, the Coasters were a collaborative project, and it is not easy to define them or what made them unique.<\/p>\n<p>On the one hand, there were the actor\/singers who brought the songs to life. As with many groups of that period, they were not completely consistent from record to record, the personnel sometimes changing and occasional ringers taking the lead <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1473 size-full alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/richard-berry-e1464273737478.jpg?resize=150%2C169\" alt=\"richard berry\" width=\"150\" height=\"169\" \/>(not a common occurrence, but \u201cRiot in Cell Block Number Nine\u201d featured Richard Berry, the composer of \u201cLouie, Louie,\u201d who appeared on no other group track and was recorded when they were still based in Los Angeles &#8212; whence &#8220;The Coasters,&#8221; for West Coast &#8212; and were called the Robins).<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, there were Jerry Leiber \u00a0and Mike Stoller, who wrote the songs and produced the records. Leiber and Stoller were expert, versatile hitmakers, and did a lot of other stuff as well, but the Coasters records are their definitive artistic statement, the perfect match of playwrights and actors, composers and musicians, producers and artists.<\/p>\n<p>The story of the Coasters and Leiber and Stoller has been told elsewhere, and what I want to emphasize here is just how much I loved that first LP collection and how much it affected my understanding of musical performance, then and forever. It was funny, and smart, and soulful, and musically challenging, and danceable, and collaborative, and individual \u2013 it was pure entertainment that was also rigorous and edgy, enjoyable and admirable on any level you might choose.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1476\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/leiber-and-stoller.jpg?resize=220%2C212\" alt=\"leiber and stoller\" width=\"220\" height=\"212\" \/>I can sing all but a couple of songs on that record, as well as lots of other Coasters songs I heard later, but I don\u2019t perform most of them because I can\u2019t do them even well enough to amuse myself. This and its prequel, \u201cFramed,\u201d are exceptions because they are such neatly crafted story-songs, and don\u2019t demand a group treatment the way \u201cYoungblood,\u201d or \u201cAlong Came Jones\u201d do. They also appealed to me because at that point I was immersing myself in blues, and they solved a problem: Dave Van Ronk could sing \u201cHoochie Coochie Man\u201d convincingly and I couldn\u2019t, but I liked that musical framework, and this song provided a combination of the setting Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters created for that song with a lyric that didn&#8217;t demand the singer be believable as its protagonist \u2013 everyone understood that I was presenting the story of a prison break, not pretending I might lead one.<\/p>\n<p>Actually&#8230; to be absolutely honest, that is a later rationalization: at the time I also sang \u201cHoochie Coochie Man,\u201d and it took\u00a0 a while for me to figure out why it didn\u2019t work, while this one and \u201cFramed\u201d did. In which context, two relevant anecdotes:<\/p>\n<p>The first is Leiber and Stoller\u2019s recollection that the songs they wrote for Elvis were big hits and made them lots of money, but were lightweight fluff compared to what they\u2019d done with the Coasters, their particular example being \u201cJailhouse Rock.\u201d They apparently wrote all the songs for that movie soundtrack in one afternoon, and Leiber dismissed the title song as Hollywood silliness, saying: \u201cWe used to write things like \u2018Riot in Cell Block Number Nine&#8217;.\u201d What he meant was that they used to write songs that were funny but also felt real, and in an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uncamarvy.com\/Robins\/robins.html\">online biography of the Robins<\/a>, Marv Goldberg quotes Terrell Leonard, one of the group <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1475\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/robins22-300x213.jpg?resize=300%2C213\" alt=\"robins22\" width=\"300\" height=\"213\" \/>members, recalling that Leiber and Stoller wrote the song with bass singer Bobby Nunn in mind, but he refused to sing it, apparently considering it low class. &#8220;We didn&#8217;t understand our heritage,&#8221; Terrell recalled. &#8220;These two white songwriters knew our culture better than we did. Bobby wouldn&#8217;t do it so they brought Richard Berry in.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The second anecdote, to balance that one, is Van Ronk\u2019s story of arriving late at a blues festival, with no idea who else was on the bill, rushing onstage, and ending his set with a shouting, macho version of \u201cHoochie Coochie Man,\u201d then coming off and finding Muddy Waters had been sitting and listening to him. Dave was embarrassed, but Muddy, as always, was polite and helpful: \u201cThat was very nice, son,\u201d he said, encouragingly. \u201cBut you know, that\u2019s supposed to be a <em>funny<\/em> song.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Though my record-buying at Dayton\u2019s focused on prewar blues, there were a handful of notable exceptions \u2013 most significantly, a trio of reissue albums on the Atlantic label featuring the Drifters, the Clovers, and \u2013 far and away most memorably \u2013 the Coasters. Aside from Chuck Berry and Ray Charles, I don\u2019t think any other &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/riot-number-nine\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Riot in Cell Block Number Nine (The Coasters)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Riot in Cell Block Number Nine (The Coasters) - Old Friends: A Songobiography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/riot-number-nine\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Riot in Cell Block Number Nine (The Coasters) - Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Though my record-buying at Dayton\u2019s focused on prewar blues, there were a handful of notable exceptions \u2013 most significantly, a trio of reissue albums on the Atlantic label featuring the Drifters, the Clovers, and \u2013 far and away most memorably \u2013 the Coasters. 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One way people don't get\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Robins-for-framed-300x196.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5739,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/down-in-the-boondocks\/","url_meta":{"origin":1468,"position":3},"title":"Down in the Boondocks","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"May 10, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I must have heard Billy Joe Royal's hit version of \"Down in the Boondocks\" in the 1970s, when I was often listening to my local oldies station, WROR -- \"the golden great 98\" -- but I don't remember taking much notice of it, since I was mostly listening for when\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Down-in-the-Boondocks-e1746741521155.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1103,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/money-honey\/","url_meta":{"origin":1468,"position":4},"title":"Money Honey (Tom Rush\/The Drifters)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"May 10, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A classic early R&B hit from Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters, though I originally heard it from Tom Rush, to whom I am forever grateful.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Tom Rush take a little walk","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Tom-Rush-take-a-little-walk.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5986,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/hoochie-coochie-man\/","url_meta":{"origin":1468,"position":5},"title":"Hoochie Coochie Man (Willie Dixon\/Muddy Waters)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"November 2, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I have to start this post with a Dave Van Ronk story: As he told it, he was playing on a blues festival someplace and arrived late, not knowing who else was on the bill. 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